Orange Free State

The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa, lying between the Orange and Vaal rivers, with its capital at Bloemfontein. It came into being in 1854, when Britain gave up the short-lived Orange River Sovereignty, and lasted until British forces conquered it in the Second Boer War. It is one of the historical forerunners of the Free State province of South Africa.

Around 1800 the land north of the Orange was home mainly to Sotho communities, with Korana, Barolong and San groups in places; Griqua settled there early in the century. Trekboer farmers from the Cape began to arrive in the 1820s, and from 1836 larger parties of the Great Trek followed, seeking to escape British rule. They founded Winburg and a governing council, the Volksraad. Meanwhile Moshoeshoe I had built the Basotho kingdom along the Caledon valley, and in 1843 Britain signed protection treaties with him and with the Griqua leader Adam Kok III, to the anger of the Boers.

After clashes between Boers and Griqua, a British Resident was installed in 1846 at a place called Bloemfontein. On 3 February 1848 the Cape governor, Sir Harry Smith, proclaimed British sovereignty over the land between the Orange and the Vaal, and he defeated the republicans under Andries Pretorius at Boomplaats that August. The British Resident never had enough force to keep order in the Orange River Sovereignty, and the British government soon decided to leave. Although many settlers wanted British rule to continue, Sir George Clerk negotiated with a republican committee instead. The Orange River Convention, signed at Bloemfontein on 23 February 1854, recognised the country's independence.

A constitution was drawn up in March and April 1854. It created a single-chamber Volksraad as the supreme authority and a president elected for five years, and it gave full citizen, or burgher, rights only to people of European descent. The young state faced an armed incursion from the South African Republic under Marthinus Pretorius and Paul Kruger in 1857, and repeated wars with the Basotho over land. The Free State fought Moshoeshoe in 1858 and again from 1865. In 1868 Moshoeshoe's country came under British protection, and the 1869 treaty of Aliwal North gave the Free State the "Conquered Territory" west of the Caledon.

Johannes Brand, a Cape lawyer, was president from 1864 until his death in 1888, years of peace and growth. Diamonds were found near the junction of the Vaal and Orange rivers in 1870 and 1871, and Britain annexed the diamond fields as Griqualand West in 1871, despite the Free State's claim. In 1876 Britain paid the Free State £90,000 to settle the dispute. The diamond trade nonetheless revived the state's finances, and mines were also opened inside its borders, notably at Jagersfontein. Brand kept the Free State neutral when the Transvaal rose against Britain in 1880.

Brand's successors drew the Free State closer to the Transvaal. A railway link with the Cape Colony and a customs union were agreed in 1889, but under Francis William Reitz and, from 1896, Martinus Theunis Steyn, the republic made a defensive alliance with Kruger's government. When war broke out between Britain and the Transvaal in October 1899, the Free State honoured the alliance. In the Second Boer War British troops under Lord Roberts occupied Bloemfontein on 13 March 1900, and on 28 May Britain declared the country annexed as the Orange River Colony. Commandos under Christiaan de Wet and others fought on until the peace of 31 May 1902.

The first census, in 1880, counted about 133,500 people, of whom 61,022 were recorded as Europeans and 72,496 as Black Africans. The colony gained self-government in 1907 and in 1910 joined the Union of South Africa as the Orange Free State Province, the forerunner of the modern Free State in South Africa.

Our maps draw the Orange Free State in 1878, 1880 and 1900, between the Cape Colony and the South African Republic. By 1914 its land is part of South Africa.